Democratic presidential candidates former Sen. John Edwards, left, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., center, and Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., look out over the crowd after they participated in the Yearly Kos ... more

Photo: Charles Rex Arbogast

Clinton gains respect at gathering of bloggers / Top Dem candidates debate to win favor of the 'netroots'

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2007-08-05 04:00:00 PDT Chicago -- Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton faced a convention Saturday of 1,400 politically influential online activists who don't particularly like her. Yet she emerged from the presidential forum here at the Yearly Kos convention with a little more respect - if not love - from the liberal bloggers.

It helps that the first thing Clinton did was thank them. In a meeting with about 350 activists before a debate with six other Democratic challengers, Clinton praised the bloggers for helping to create a "modern progressive movement" and for standing up "against a right-wing noise machine."

"I only wish we had this active and fighting a blogosphere 15 years ago," when her husband, Bill, was president, Clinton said. She got a laugh by joking that a faulty microphone was the work of "a vast right-wing conspiracy."

Clinton's appearance Saturday and the relatively small amount of hostile reaction she got underscore two points: Clinton knows that online activists have won a seat at the liberal power table, and the "netroots" are willing to at least listen to the candidate leading most Democratic polls.

Her comments at the debate received a few hisses and some cheers, but she was loudly booed only once - after she said she would continue to accept contributions from Washington lobbyists.

Then again, Clinton has nowhere to go but up with this crowd. She received 9 percent of the vote - narrowly nudging "No Freaking Clue" - at the last straw poll on www.dailykos.com , the 500,000-visitors-a-day blog from which the convention borrows its name. Former Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., won that straw poll, and Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., was second.

Markos "Kos" Moulitsas, the Berkeley resident who founded the blog, said Saturday it was important for Clinton to defuse the hostility many "netroots" activists have toward her.

Many liberal bloggers are still angry with Clinton for her 2002 vote authorizing President Bush to use force in Iraq, and others see her as a Democratic Party insider beholden to corporate interests.

Edwards played to that sentiment Saturday by asking his rivals twice if they'd refuse to accept campaign contributions from "Washington lobbyists." After Edwards asked a second time, moderator Matt Bai pressed Clinton if she would.

"I think it's a position that John certainly has taken," Clinton said, her nonanswer drawing laughs from the audience. "I don't think based on my 35 years fighting for what I believe in, I don't think anybody seriously believes I'm going to be influenced by a lobbyist."

That's when the boos cascaded over her, and Clinton's tone grew defensive.

"I wish it were as simple as saying we're going to do this and we're going to do that. It's going to take a grassroots movement. And that's why I'm here today - to thank the blogosphere, to thank Daily Kos, to thank you for being part of the progressive movement in America," she said.

As the audience applauded, Bai asked for a definitive answer on whether she'll take contributions from lobbyists.

"Yes, I will because a lot of those lobbyists, whether you like it or not, represent real Americans," she said. "They represent nurses, they represent social workers, yes, they represent corporations that employ a lot of people. The idea that somehow a contribution is going to influence you - I just ask you to look at my record."

But then Obama pounced.

"I disagree with the notion that lobbyists don't have disproportionate influence. The insurance and the drug companies spent $1 billion in lobbying over the last decade," he said.

"Now, Hillary, you were talking earlier about the efforts you made back in '93" to reform health care, Obama said. "You can't tell me that money did not have a difference. They are not spending that just because they are contributing to the public interest. They have an agenda." The statement drew loud applause.

Over the next few days, thousands of bloggers will parse every nuance of Clinton's performance Saturday in the same way that football fans dissect a 49ers game on sports talk radio.

Even more so than in the recent YouTube/CNN debate, the looser atmosphere cultivated Saturday - fueled by uninhibited cheering, jeering and standing ovations - seemed to somewhat dislodge the candidates from their usual sound-bite answers.

It was an audience that opened the proceedings by singing "Happy Birthday" to Obama, who turned 46 Saturday, booed New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson for saying he'd support a balanced budget amendment, and cheered Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., for boasting how he took on Fox News commentator - and Yearly Kos basher - Bill O'Reilly last week.

Richardson set the tone early in the debate when he was asked why he once said Justice Byron White, a conservative, would be his ideal Supreme Court nominee. "I screwed up on that," Richardson said. "I love John F. Kennedy and figured if Kennedy had supported him ..."

Clinton, who often says she has the scars from her failed attempt to reform health care in the 1990s, was pressed to expand on what she'd do differently.

"It is not enough to have a plan. You've got to have a political strategy," she said. "In 90 seconds, I don't have the time to tell you all the mistakes I made."

"I think it was great," Jerome Armstrong said after seeing Clinton's small group appearance. Armstrong is one of the liberal blogosphere's most respected voices for his posts at www.mydd.com and elsewhere. "She showed that she understands the blogosphere and that it can be a powerful tool. She's not just using the buzzwords."

Clinton fielded only five questions at the hourlong smaller session, answering most with multipoint policy prescriptions, and spent roughly nine minutes on one question about how she'd reform education. The only challenging question came from a blogger who asked which policies from the Bill Clinton era that she would change. She repeated her position that she would change the "don't ask, don't tell" law governing gays in the military that her husband passed, but otherwise offered only few alterations.

"I don't like some of the things she said," said Susanna Styron, a filmmaker who is uncommitted, "but at least she stood up for them and didn't back off of them."

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